If children are not permitted-not taught-to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world...?

Only love could pick a nested pair of steel Bramah locks.

Bina rolls her eyes, hands on her hips, glances at the door. Then she comes over and drops her bag and plops down beside him. How many times, he wonders, can she have enough of him, already, and still have not quite enough?

No; he could be ruined again and again by hope, but he would never be capable of belief.

Every Messiah fails, the moment he tries to redeem himself.

It never takes longer than a few minutes, when they get together, for everyone to revert to the state of nature, like a party marooned by a shipwreck. That's what a family is. Also the storm at sea, the ship, and the unknown shore. And the hats and the whiskey stills that you make out of bamboo and coconuts. And the fire that you light to keep away the beasts.

I wanted to give readers the feeling of knowing the characters, a mental image.